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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established social contract theory, the foundation of most later Western political philosophy. Though on rational grounds a champion of absolutism for the sovereign, Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid. He was one of the founders of modern political philosophy and political science. His understanding of humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as other matter and motion, remains influential; and his account of human nature as self-interested cooperation, and of political communities as being based upon a "social contract" remains one of the major topics of political philosophy. In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, geometry, the physics of gases, theology, ethics, and general philosophy. Tossup Questions # Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer wrote a book analyzing a scientific debate in which this philosopher denied the existence of the concept of a vacuum. He defined "reason" as the mathematical reckoning of the consequences of agreed-upon names, and defined "right" as the liberty to make use of that faculty of reason. This philosopher, who wrote a treatise attacking the experiments of Robert Boyle, used the term "manners" to describe actions that allow men to live in peace in unity, these actions being forms of (*) "motion", which he believed to be the universal cause of all things. These definitions, some of which he originally formulated in De Homine and De Cive, were included in a work that advocates forming a Christian commonwealth to escape from the state of nature, which is "the war of all against all". For 10 points, name this English philosopher who argued for the concept of absolute sovereignty in his Leviathan. # In his own time, this man attacked Robert Boyle for his attempts to convince the priesthood in the existence of an "incorporeal substance." He chronicled the rise of Cromwell and the Papists and the dissolution of Great Britain in his book Behemoth. In another work, he argued that theologians who use the demons and angels of heathen poets are part of a "confederacy of deceivers" that populate the Kingdom of Darkness. That work posits that the natural state of man is a "war of all against all," which is avoided in the best commonwealths, since men give up their rights to be ruled by a monarch. For 10 points, name this political philosopher who wrote Leviathan. # In one work, this man used an extended simile likening the Catholic hierarchy to broods of fairies. He began his magnum opus with twelve chapters of axiomatic definitions, and later in that work criticized the misinterpretation of Scripture by a "confederacy of deceivers." This thinker believed men are equally able to use body and mind to kill one another, and that competition, diffidence, and glory produce a "war of (*) all against all." He argued that absent a failure to protect against external invasion, nothing can break the covenant of absolute duty to the sovereign. For 10 points, name this tutor of Charles II, who was inspired by the English Civil War to write that the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" in Leviathan. # This man published a 1629 translation of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War into English. This man's works De Corpore, De Homine, and De Cive were to be part of this man's Elements of Philosophy. He described the causes of civil war in his book Behemoth; or, The Long Parliament. In another of his works, he described fear of violence as the reason for creating a state and described the natural state of men's lives as (*) "nasty, brutish, and short." For 10 points, name this British philosopher who wrote Leviathan. # This philosopher argued against the worship of saints as demonology and claimed that mixing Aristotle with Christian thought leads to a "confederacy of deceivers." He authored a chapter discussing the "Kingdom of Darkness," which is found in a work that also contains the section "Of Man." His philosophy equates the state of nature with the "war of all against all." In a four-part book, this advocate of commonwealth claims that the life of man is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." For 10 points, name this English philosopher who wrote Leviathan.